Amazon a no go in N.H.

Granite State is not a finalist for online company’s HQ2

Damien Fisher

Staff Writer

dfisher@nashuatelegraph.com

AP FILE PHOTO
A clerk reaches to a shelf to pick an item for a customer order on Dec. 20 at the Amazon Prime warehouse in New York. Amazon announced Thursday that it has narrowed down its potential site for a second headquarters in North America to 20 metropolitan areas, mainly on the East Coast.

CONCORD – New Hampshire didn’t make the cut for Amazon, as the Internet shopping giant passed on Gov. Chris Sununu’s proposal to bring the firm’s new headquarters to

Londonderry.

“New Hampshire’s groundbreaking proposal to recruit Amazon was the most comprehensive business marketing plan our state has ever produced,” Sununu said.

Amazon announced last year it would build a second headquarters somewhere in the country to compliment its Seattle-based campus. The second Amazon HQ would be a major jobs and economic development coup for the city that gets it, officials said. On Thursday, the company released its Top 20 finalist locations, including Atlanta, Pittsburgh, New York and Boston. Finalist cities offered millions in tax breaks, while Sununu offered nothing more than New Hampshire’s already low business tax environment.

Sununu said New Hampshire’s Amazon proposal was more about showing other companies what the Granite State could offer.

“While we always knew that our bid was considered a long shot, we are excited that it is already serving as a template for other businesses that now have New Hampshire on their radar,” he said. “Our commitment to economic and workforce development is already yielding results.”

Sununu has met with more than 100 out-of-state businesses in his first 100 days in office, though he has declined to name those companies.

The Amazon proposal would have located the company in Londonderry, with access to Interstate 93. Amazon also wanted, among other items, public transportation. Sununu, a longtime skeptic of plans to build out a commuter rail service connecting Southern New Hampshire to Boston, said rail was “on the table” for Amazon.

This week, Sununu released his 10-year transportation plan that now includes using $4 million in federal funds to complete a study on bringing commuter rail to Nashua and Manchester, something he previously opposed. Sununu’s transportation plan will need to be voted on by the Republican-led Legislature, which has previously balked at commuter rail proposals.

Nashua currently is involved with a private, Rhode Island-based firm that plans to start a for-profit commuter rail service linking Bedford and Nashua to Lowell, Massachusetts.

Damien Fisher can be reached at 594-1245 or dfisher@nashuatelegraph.com or @Telegraph_DF.